Locked Down in Toronto

Visible minorities are more likely to be held without bail in Ontario than their white counterparts.








Toronto Star reporter Jim Rankin (Photo by Emilie Bourque)


After two and half years, Jim Rankin finally got what he was after.


The Toronto Star reporter put in a freedom of information request for criminal records in Canada only to be told that it would cost him 1.6 million dollars to access this information.

Rankin didn’t pay a dime in the end but found what he had been suspecting all along; disproportionate numbers of those in lock down in Toronto and even the country.

An example of Rankin’s findings is the fact that aboriginals in Canada make up only 3.8 per cent of the population, yet they constitute 19 per cent of those in Canadian prisons.

The Canadian Police Information Centre, as cited by the Star, records race as either white or non-white.

Non-whites were 53 per cent more likely not to be convicted, only because they had credits for “time served” according to the Star’s analysis of conviction rates.

What that really means is those who are a visible minority are often held without bail, according to the 1995 Report of Systematic Racism. They are also more likely to have DNA taken than their white counterparts.

A couple of years and one website later, Rankin has recorded this information and more about the Canadian Justice System on the Toronto Star’s website, Crime & Punishment.